Is the world getting better, getting worse, staying the same, or indeterminate?

[Thoth]

To expound a little, I recently friended an old acquaintance on Facebook. Many of her posts are of the anti-vax nature, and she has a lot of friends echoing her. I probed a bit, you know, tried some evidence and reason, but was met with utter dismissal. It seemed to me that their attitude was driven by a breakdown in trust in society's systems - health, education, law. I reckon the disparity in wealth and accompanying corruption drives a lot of that way of thinking, as Plato was describing.

I've got a few anti vaxers in my newsfeed. Reasoning with them is pointless. But trolling them is oodles of fun.

[Kidlicious]

True, but with the industrial revolution we were told that if we all worked we could all live like kings. While that turned out to be true, during the course of the latter half of the 20th century and beyond there has been a definite trickling up.

Even the relatively right wing group the IMF has noted it.

And if you save your money you will generally fair better. I'm not saying we aren't better off as individuals in the first world, but that we are because we live together with other individuals who save their money, and do productive things with that money.

Let's not confuse the immortality of self-interest with this. Why does the IMF lend money? Because poor countries are in debt. They are in debt because they have no tax base and they are corrupt. They have no tax base because they do not save.

[kentonio]

And if you save your money you will generally fair better. I'm not saying we aren't better off as individuals in the first world, but that we are because we live together with other individuals who save their money, and do productive things with that money.

Let's not confuse the immortality of self-interest with this. Why does the IMF lend money? Because poor countries are in debt. They are in debt because they have no tax base and they are corrupt. They have no tax base because they do not save.

This is extremely dumb. People in the third world work considerably harder than people in the west. The reason their lives are ****ter is because their countries don't have hundreds of years of privilege and wealth providing them with incredible infrastructure, stable government and huge industry and trade.

[Kidlicious]

This is extremely dumb. People in the third world work considerably harder than people in the west. The reason their lives are ****ter is because their countries don't have hundreds of years of privilege and wealth providing them with incredible infrastructure, stable government and huge industry and trade.

Working hard is not the same thing as saving and investing. You work hard if you have to, if you have too many mouths to feed. You save and invest when you are smart.

[Aeson]

Yah, if only people with no discretionary income would save that non-existent discretionary income they would be rich!

[Kidlicious]

Yah, if only people with no discretionary income would save that non-existent discretionary income they would be rich!

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. They need to pool resources and work together, and stop blaming successful nations.

[Aeson]

Pooling resources and working together is a good thing. If you accept that ... we should pool resources and work with them instead of allowing lines on maps to divide pools up and have us work against each other.

Blame is appropriate where strong nations have taken/are taking advantage of weak ones.

[Kidlicious]

Pooling resources and working together is a good thing. If you accept that ... we should pool resources and work with them instead of allowing lines on maps to divide pools up and have us work against each other.

Blame is appropriate where strong nations have taken/are taking advantage of weak ones.

The fact that one nation is rich and another nation is poor doesn't mean the rich nation took advantage of the poor nation. Rich and poor do work together and both benefit from each other. That said, I said let's put aside the immortality of self-interest. That's a given, but doesn't change the fact that what separates rich and poor is savings, because those who don't save end up in debt. That's more their own fault than those they are in debt to.

[Jon Miller]

http://www.vagabomb.com/This-Comic-Will-Forever-Change-the-Way-You-Look-at-Privilege/

Title is crap but good comic.

Your comment is even more stupid when applying it to nations and not individuals.

JM

[Kidlicious]

http://www.vagabomb.com/This-Comic-W...-at-Privilege/

Title is crap but good comic.

Your comment is even more stupid when applying it to nations and not individuals.

JM

Good grief. It's not impossible to teach your children to save money just because you have to work.

[Donegeal]

Kid, you are Ben-level stupid.

[kentonio]

The fact that one nation is rich and another nation is poor doesn't mean the rich nation took advantage of the poor nation.

Please provide an example of a poor country that has not previously been taken advantage of by a rich country.

[giblets]

And if you save your money you will generally fair better. I'm not saying we aren't better off as individuals in the first world, but that we are because we live together with other individuals who save their money, and do productive things with that money.

Let's not confuse the immortality of self-interest with this. Why does the IMF lend money? Because poor countries are in debt. They are in debt because they have no tax base and they are corrupt. They have no tax base because they do not save.

This is an overly simplified model of economic development that was debunked in the 1950s.

[Kidlicious]

This is an overly simplified model of economic development that was debunked in the 1950s.

You mean before the development of China?

[giblets]

Why does China's high savings rate lead to much better results than the Soviet Union's high savings rate ever did?